iMessages sent from wrong account

[themikea]

I have noticed what seems like a bug where the Apple Watch sends an iMessage from the wrong account. It has happened to both my girlfriend and I who both have Apple Watches. We will have an ongoing iMessage conversation on our iPhones and randomly a reply from the watch will sometimes come from a secondary iMessage address such as the iCloud account. This creates a separate conversation on the iPhone.

Confirmed "Start new conversations from" are set to our primary phone numbers, and removed the iCloud accounts from Messages settings. I have a secondary (work) phone number associated with Messages also and now it has started randomly sending from that number.

Seems to occur under random circumstances, so difficult to reproduce, but happens often enough.

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[themikea]

Just opened a case with Apple. Didn't seem they were aware of this as a bug. But are having me unfair and re-pair the watch from the phone. Will give that a try at least, and see if it helps.

 

[The Tuck]

I've experienced this recently with an iPhone. Could be a bug on Apple's end.

Tuck

 

[themikea]

I've experienced this recently with an iPhone. Could be a bug on Apple's end.

Tuck

Oh, good to know. I've never had it happen with just my iPhone. Makes sense though since the watch uses the iPhone to do everything anyway.

 

[mostlynameless]

The same thing happened to me the day after I got my watch. My third contact is showing as the sender of my iMessages that come from my watch. It also is an iCloud address.

I wouldn't even know about it except that my friend asked. On my phone, the conversation looks normal.

If anyone gets a solution, please post.

 

[makefunnyfaces]

Same thing is happening on boyfriend's watch (I don't have mine yet wah).

Let us know if you find out anything.

 

[themikea]

I unpaired and re-paired my watch with my phone yesterday. Have sent and replied to quite a few messages from the watch and haven't had it happen again yet. Asked a few of my contacts to tell me if they receive a message from my other number or email address. Still keeping an eye on it, as I'm not sure how often it actually happened.

 

[erich1188]

As a former iOS AHA and iPhone user, I notice that the phone number does drop from iMessage from time to time. It's important to make sure that there's a checkmark next to the phone number on the iPhone. Obviously you guys are already aware of that. For anyone else that may stumble across this, check Settings -> Message -> Send & Receive first. If the number is not checked, turn iMessage on, wait a few seconds, and then turn it back on.

The messages are sent from the phone no matter what, so my guess is that it is merely coincidental that it happened with the watch.

Hope that it works out, please update with the resolution!

Edit: If after resetting iMessage and you have a checkmark next to your number, but people still say it's coming from your e-mail.. Make sure that you're starting new conversations from your number under the Send & Receive settings, and then also delete any open conversations that this is happening with and start a new one.

 

[Scott-n-Houston]

I've had this happen well before the watch was even announced. It's been an issue for a while.

 

[xraydoc]

Happened to me on the iPhone and iPad long before the watch.

Solution (for me) is to uncheck all the email addresses listed under iMessage and just leave it as my phone number.

Messages are correctly forwarded to my iPad and watch and now no longer randomly come from other iMessages addresses. Only my phone #.

Do the same under the FaceTime settings. No problem receiving facetime calls & video to my phone #.

 

[themikea]

Oddly I have never had it happen before the watch. I don't need my email address associated with iMessage so I removed it, but do need a second number. I default to sending from my primary number as I always have. Even after I've noticed the issue happening, everything in the iMessage settings on the iPhone was correct.

 

[leesweet]

I've have this happen too, when it switches from my primary gmail address to my iCloud address. It appears to be when shifting networks (LTE to wifi) but that could be a red herring.

For the person that I text most to (GF) we just added that other email address to her copy of my contact info. But that wouldn't work in general of course.

Be interesting to hear of a general fix (and, yes, this never happened before the AW).

 

[themikea]

Happened again today while using the iPhone. My gf and I were messaging on our phones and mid conversation she noted that one of my replies had come from my secondary number and started another conversation. She replied to the original conversation and my phone went back to sending from my primary (default) number.

I had recently joined a wifi network. Some previous messages were sent over LTE. I will do some testing with this theory tomorrow and see if I can re-produce the problem.

 

[fischersd]

Happened again today while using the iPhone. My gf and I were messaging on our phones and mid conversation she noted that one of my replies had come from my secondary number and started another conversation. She replied to the original conversation and my phone went back to sending from my primary (default) number.

I had recently joined a wifi network. Some previous messages were sent over LTE. I will do some testing with this theory tomorrow and see if I can re-produce the problem.

You have two phone numbers on the same SIM card? Do you have both of them checked in your iMessage configuration? If so, maybe you're hitting a race condition they didn't anticipate (and hopefully you gave that information to Apple when you reported the case).

 

[themikea]

You have two phone numbers on the same SIM card? Do you have both of them checked in your iMessage configuration? If so, maybe you're hitting a race condition they didn't anticipate (and hopefully you gave that information to Apple when you reported the case).

I actually have two iPhones. Either way, the same thing happened with my iCloud account with the second number disabled. It appears this bug just randomly chooses any secondary number or address enabled in iMessage.

And yes, I have given all of this info to Apple and am continuing to update the case.

 

[DDustiNN]

The same thing happened to me the day after I got my watch. My third contact is showing as the sender of my iMessages that come from my watch. It also is an iCloud address.

I wouldn't even know about it except that my friend asked. On my phone, the conversation looks normal.

If anyone gets a solution, please post.

Same exact thing happened to me on Friday, the day I got my Watch. Yesterday my friend asked why my texts were coming from an iCloud email address... I had no clue, since everything was still in the same conversation on my phone. And I hadn't even used the Watch to reply. I also never changed any settings prior to this happening.

So what I did was sent into the iMessage settings and just unchecked both of my email addresses, leaving only my phone number. Texted him again and he said it was back to normal.

Still have no idea what happened though...

 

[themikea]

Tried switching back and forth between wifi and LTE and back and forth between the watch and the iPhone on both wifi and LTE all in the same conversation and the issue did not happen.

 

[apple.pseudofan]

I have noticed what seems like a bug where the Apple Watch sends an iMessage from the wrong account. It has happened to both my girlfriend and I who both have Apple Watches. We will have an ongoing iMessage conversation on our iPhones and randomly a reply from the watch will sometimes come from a secondary iMessage address such as the iCloud account. This creates a separate conversation on the iPhone.

Confirmed "Start new conversations from" are set to our primary phone numbers, and removed the iCloud accounts from Messages settings. I have a secondary (work) phone number associated with Messages also and now it has started randomly sending from that number.

Seems to occur under random circumstances, so difficult to reproduce, but happens often enough.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I was messaging my mom from my watch and told her to call me so I could test taking a call on my watch. She called the number that the message came from, which was my work number. My watch is paired with my personal phone, with iMessages set to always start from that number. Never had the issue before the watch. Definitely a bug.

 

[themikea]

I was messaging my mom from my watch and told her to call me so I could test taking a call on my watch. She called the number that the message came from, which was my work number. My watch is paired with my personal phone, with iMessages set to always start from that number. Never had the issue before the watch. Definitely a bug.

Sounds like you and I have the exact same situation going on with multiple numbers.

I've had it happen several times today just messaging back and forth with the iPhone without the watch being involved. Same with me, never happened before I had the watch. It is definitely a bug, just appears to be triggered randomly in the middle of conversations.

 

[iBlazed]

I had this happen too. Friends were telling me my texts were coming from my iCloud email.

 

[themikea]

I had this happen too. Friends were telling me my texts were coming from my iCloud email.

Sending from the watch or phone?

 

[xraydoc]

Sending from the watch or phone?

Unfortunately it's got nothing to do with the watch. While you may not have been affected before, it's a long-standing bug.

 

[iBlazed]

Sending from the watch or phone?

Both. And from my Mac too. Like the person above me said, it's not a watch issue. It's happened before and the last time the bug popped up again was this past week.

 

[themikea]

Yes, I realized after doing some more extensive testing that it was indeed not a watch issue at all. Although for me, like some others, I never had it happen before activating my watch.

I updated my case with the Apple iOS team today and they will not acknowledge it as a bug. They told me they do not support multiple addresses or numbers to be configured in messages and that I should remove all additional numbers or addresses to ensure messages are only sent from my primary number.

I asked for clarification as to why a conversation correctly started with my primary number would randomly change to sending from an other address or number. I was told "if the number becomes unavailable it will randomly choose another address or number to send from". Seems like avoiding the issue of admitting a bug. Anyway, they closed my case with the recommendation to remove all but my primary number, which doesn't really work for me. Not much else I can do at this point though.

 

[friedmud]

It happened to me 2 days ago... but on my PHONE not on my watch.

I sent a message to my friend from my Watch. That came through like usual using my phone number (that's how I have it set up on all of my devices)

He replied.

I grabbed my phone to do a bigger reply... when I hit send it apparently went through using my icloud account. He was like "What the hell" because it started a new conversation.

All of my messages from my phone were coming through from my icloud account and everything from my Watch was from my phone number like usual. Weird.

To "fix" it... he added my icloud account to my contact on his phone... then deleted the thread from my icloud account. All of the next messages flowed together like normal.

This is just some glitch in iMessage somewhere... probably not specifically about the Watch...